All Entries Tagged With: "rant"
The Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition Rant
I consider 4th edition to be the “Star Trek: Enterprise” of the RPG world. An utter turd spawned from a beloved franchise, floating along on the river of franchise goodwill. Until it is justifiably flushed… That sucking sound you hear is the last breath of 4th edition going to a sewery grave. This also marks [...]
NDAs, 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons and RPG Media Sell-Outs
Non-disclosure agreements protect games during development from idea/concept theft and premature release of less-than-perfect versions. All well and good, but the recent flood of NDAs signed by various web sites regarding 5th Editon (or whatever the final name is ) D&D I find troubling. Some RPG blog sites, which I shall not name, got early [...]
Gen Con 2011–The Rant
Gen Con 2011 is now one week past and it is time for my last thoughts. Forgive me as I wander through my disjointed thoughts of Gen Con 2011 because in addition to some great games, I picked up a “Con Crud” infection. What fun. Let me start with my initial thoughts about the shows’ [...]
The Little Moments
If someone asks me why my hobby is role-playing games my stock answer is “they are fun.” It was not until last Saturday night’s game that I experienced an epiphany. In one encounter I finally understood why I enjoy role-playing games so very much. I play the game for the little moments. My RPG sessions [...]
Paper vs. Pixels. Part 1: Why I don’t play World of Warcraft
Despite his love of books, Aiden indulged in the occasional video game. Most of them were Martin’s—guns, robots, and tanks vaporizing whatever monsters moved before the reticule. Aiden favored sword-wielding and spellcraft, but those games were difficult to find. His mother located one as freeware from a seldom-surfed website. His warrior dodged and flipped in [...]
Threshold: 10,000 Unique Visitors This Month!
I have never posted about Livingdice’s traffic before because no one really cares but me. That said, I reached a threshold I had as a personal goal for the past couple of years and just felt the urge to share my joy: 10,000 unique visitors this month! It only took a mere three years and [...]
DARPA Needs Gamers
DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency is famous for putting money into all kinds of projects with defense applications. Arpanet, the precursor of the Internet being the most famous but hardly their only effort. Other DARPA-funded projects include powered exoskeletons, driverless car competitions, molten munitions, onion network routing and stealth boats. Given their track [...]
Can You Survive the 12 Mile Gen Con Death March?
The Gen Con 2010 gaming convention was a twelve-mile hike over four days. This is not an estimate, it is a fact. My collaborator on this site wears a pedometer as part of his fitness program and recorded slightly over 12 miles as his total for Gen Con 2010. I suspect many people exceed that [...]
Expensive Board Games–Do We Really Need Such High Production Values?
I believe that board game companies are in a marketing arms races. Each year board games achieve new heights in art, component quality and box design. This drives the retail price up and forces other companies to produce equally beautiful and elaborate products…and raise prices to pay for it. I am about to commit heresy [...]